Major Additions - Product Review Forums ? Research, Review & Compare Items

Version 1.4.0 has been released to remove the giftery / list it integration of the addon now that service has been discontinued. No upgrade is needed though there have been a few other bug changes since 1.3.5.

Finding Feedback Can be Like a Needle in a Haystack

The more your forum grows, the more of a challenge it becomes to sort through the history and get the full story.

Product Review Forums Brings Structure to the Chaos

As a full-featured product management addon, PRF sits on top of your forum allowing you to create defined products which, unlike individual posts, stay relevant over time. Each comment, review and even product updates filter back into this one spot allowing for a quick and comprehensive overview while the individual discussions rage on as always.

Here's just a few of the many features you'll find in PRF:

• Bring structure to products with established pages & reviews
• Reduce the number of repetitive posts from members looking up the same info
• Increase your traffic with content-rich, seo friendly, product listings
• Drive revenue by adding your own affiliate links to product listings
• Increase the activity stream's value with review integration
  
• Engage visitors with integrated wishlists from Giftery.me

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Installation is not upload & go... individualized settings are required. Read the install file.

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QUICK TIPS:
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Enabling Product Forums: To show product details and ratings, each product-forum must be enabled in the forum manager.

Adding Products: You may upload products one at a time through the admin [includes an image uploader using GD] or you can bulk import through XML. You can also enable users to add moderated products through a global and usergroup option.

Product Review Index: To access your forum's product overview go to www.yoursite.com/productforums.php - You may want to add a link to this to your navbar or as a tab.

Customization: This addon is made to be customized. To change the color schema see clientscript/vbulletin_css or dive right on in to the templates and phrases.

Powered by Giftery.me: This mod is maintained includes two integrations you should know about. Both can be controlled through the mod options.

[bpaulsen]

Hello,

we installed your AddOn since 4 Weeks in our development Environment. In my mind we could create Products in the Front End, so we could allow our visitors to create Products. But now, i would test this function, there is no mask for this. Is this right, or where we could look to see if we do a mistake, at our customizing?

Thank you

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by bpaulsen

Hello,

we installed your AddOn since 4 Weeks in our development Environment. In my mind we could create Products in the Front End, so we could allow our visitors to create Products. But now, i would test this function, there is no mask for this. Is this right, or where we could look to see if we do a mistake, at our customizing?

Thank you

I'm not sure what you're asking... No mask? What's the issue with creating products?

[snotek]

We have just installed a new load of vB 4.2.0 with the full publishing suite and your product only partially functions. I have followed the instructions to the best of the printed words and made the modification to the forumdisplay.php. I have set up one forum for Products and one forum for Reviews. I have given the ability for the Registered Users group to add products.

http://diydronesafety.com (open to public)

The productforums.php file looks ok - http://diydronesafety.com/productforums.php

1. There is no price listed
2. Clicking anything takes you to a blank post that looks nothing like the screen shots.
3. There is no information/instructions on how users are supposed to create products or leave reviews.

Please assist. Any plans to support 4.2.0?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by snotek

We have just installed a new load of vB 4.2.0 with the full publishing suite and your product only partially functions. I have followed the instructions to the best of the printed words and made the modification to the forumdisplay.php. I have set up one forum for Products and one forum for Reviews. I have given the ability for the Registered Users group to add products.

http://diydronesafety.com (open to public)

The productforums.php file looks ok - http://diydronesafety.com/productforums.php

1. There is no price listed
2. Clicking anything takes you to a blank post that looks nothing like the screen shots.
3. There is no information/instructions on how users are supposed to create products or leave reviews.

Please assist. Any plans to support 4.2.0?

[Edit] Previous answer ignored some key facts, revising in a few...

[snotek]

I did get an email notification of your previous response, and I see your edit above - I'd like to clarify a few things so that we're both on the same page.

I've been using vB since v2.x and I am pretty familiar with it's functionality. I will say that your plugin, with it's ~20 options, does not compare to the hundreds of options vB has so it doesn't put me off or confuse me.

Your instructions appear to be incomplete, they state very broadly in about 5 steps what to do but do not go into any further detail. I installed per the instructions, I re-read the instructions numerous times, a scoured the web looking for better/more complete instructions, I compared and scrutinized all your screenshots (some links are broken btw), and I spent a good two hours digging through your code and vB trying to figure out why it wasn't working prior to posting here for help from the developer.

I saw a few posts here that indicated there may be some issues on 4.2.x but I wasn't about to read through 58 pages of posts to locate in lieu of just posting myself for a more direct response.

Our install of vB 4.2.0 is out of the box with very few modifications and the forums are not even active yet. We have posted a few blogs and articles, setup the forums a little, and that's about it.

My point is that there shouldn't be any major conflicts. My issue is that even following your instructions to the letter my installation only resembles one of your screenshots. (the productforums.php page)

[snotek]

Ok, I deleted the product, cleared the db, made sure there were no traces of it at all. Reinstalled, set it up again, re-modified the forumdisplay.php file, and this time I see an option on the forum manager that wasn't there previously. It would probably help to provide a more verbose instruction set as vB has sooooo many options unless you know exactly what you're looking for it can be difficult to find. Also some better explanation as to what the specific options do, where they are needed etc.

I'm not trying to be overly critical, just helpful. The included install.html has broken links/images and does not explain much other than what can be figured out by having the experience of installing any other plugin.

So at this point I have a product listing forum with the modification of "ratings/reviews", I have a product review forum with a review, and I have the search and comparison "link" which points to the productforums.php file.

With regards to the product description block when adding a new product - what code can be used there? I tried bbcode and that didn't work, will it accept html? css?

It also seems to load the product images VERY slowly - I suspect this is due to the site they are linked from. As a possible feature enhancement why not just grab and cache those locally when setting up the product? It also appears that the "sharing" links load pretty slowly - are those being referenced off-site as well?

Other than a little more clarification it appears to be working as intended at this point, so thank you for a great plugin as it will be very beneficial for this forum/customer.

[snotek]

Ok, the price still isn't showing...
http://diydronesafety.com/productforums.php

I'm not sure HTML works either, although it did lay it out differently than the bbcode which didn't work at all. Perhaps the board is stripping away the <ul> info I added.

[Ted S]

Regarding your first post, now you see why I removed my response.

After 12 years in vB I really hate it when people attribute a mod not working on their site to a mod not working at all... It's not so much the implication to me as the impact to everyone else. People see "doesn't work in 4.2" and despite many people running it in 4.2 they run screaming...

But you didn't just install the mod and scream. And I'm so use to people who do that I glanced right past your intro until I made that post that I didn't do justice understanding your investment into things. So let's get this rocking because if there's one thing I really like it's good feedback...

Originally Posted by snotek

Ok, I deleted the product, cleared the db, made sure there were no traces of it at all. Reinstalled, set it up again, re-modified the forumdisplay.php file, and this time I see an option on the forum manager that wasn't there previously.

Welcome to the world of vBulletin mods. It baffles us all but sometimes despite adding the bit and rebuilding, it just doesn't "stick"... Usually after another install [forced upgrade] or a refresh things show up.... It's complex addon system that tries to offer a lot of range without a lot of modification to the core.

It would probably help to provide a more verbose instruction set as vB has sooooo many options unless you know exactly what you're looking for it can be difficult to find.

You know that's a good point and I appreciate it. Sadly for 90% of the people who use this and my other mod [which also requires forum-level activation] the issue isn't the instructions sucking it's that they never open them to even see the big bold section about this.

I'm not trying to be overly critical, just helpful. The included install.html has broken links/images and does not explain much other than what can be figured out by having the experience of installing any other plugin.

To the prior point, we all decide where to draw our line... I've put mine more on the side of features than documents but it's an evolving point. And I can take the hint

So at this point I have a product listing forum with the modification of "ratings/reviews", I have a product review forum with a review, and I have the search and comparison "link" which points to the productforums.php file.

With regards to the product description block when adding a new product - what code can be used there? I tried bbcode and that didn't work, will it accept html? css?

Full HTML should be allowed...

In 1.3.0 this will change to light HTML for users [strong/b/em/i/ul/ol/li/br/] and most HTML for admins [no script or embeds]. Need to verify that vBulletin isn't parsing this out however.... the post generator overrides a lot of the rules I try to set.

It also seems to load the product images VERY slowly - I suspect this is due to the site they are linked from. As a possible feature enhancement why not just grab and cache those locally when setting up the product? It also appears that the "sharing" links load pretty slowly - are those being referenced off-site as well?

This is something I'd love thoughts on. The problem with uploads is that no two sites are alike and while vB has a new uploader, the process still stinks...

At this point I'm literally considering telling sites to sign up for Rackspace's CDN and pushing files too it. That's a little extreme but it would work and it's dirt cheap (like $0.10 / gb].

On the otherhand scraping or resizing a photo is slow just one off. And when importing a product list that's a huge problem... You can't do it live, it's not ideal to resize a bunch of images once and then force them to look smaller in the browser [big file size]... I'm just not sure what the solve is.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by snotek

Ok, the price still isn't showing...
http://diydronesafety.com/productforums.php

In the template productforums_listed_bit replace {vbhrase prodforums_price,{vb:raw price}} with just {vb:raw price} and let me know what happens.

I'm not sure HTML works either, although it did lay it out differently than the bbcode which didn't work at all. Perhaps the board is stripping away the <ul> info I added.

Probably the board killing it.. Hope to solve this for 1.3.0 or I'll move it over to BBCode

[snotek]

In the template productforums_listed_bit replace {vbhrase prodforums_price,{vb:raw price}} with just {vb:raw price} and let me know what happens.

I did that and it seems to work fine. It still doesn't show the currency symbol. Are there any plans to support multiple currencies? Maybe a dropdown in the add product with all the known currency symbols? (most used on top)

I'll move it over to BBCode

That would probably be sufficient for most general formatting. css support (in addition to others perhaps) would be boss.

This is something I'd love thoughts on. The problem with uploads is that no two sites are alike and while vB has a new uploader, the process still stinks...

I use a plugin that works (I think) the way the built-in vB "retreive file and store locally" bit feature is supposed to. If any image is linked to in a post it will cache it locally and re-reference the image. This way if a link goes dead/bad the data retains its integrity. We also use one that watermarks the images too. It may take a second to load up the product but who cares? If they're importing an xml (list) then they just get a progress bar.


On a side note:
How do normal users create products? It doesn't say in the instructions or screenshots. I have given the ability for Registered Users group to create products.